Wednesday, June 10, 2009

LTI Podcast Episode 14 [Serge]

In light of the recent murder of abortionist George Tiller, Rich, Scott, and Jay unequivocally condemn this crime. However, are pro-life advocates partly responsible for this act by creating an environment that creates vigilantes? Or are we inconsistent with our pro-life beliefs because we condemn this action? We respond to these specific arguments in part one of two of our roundtable discussion.

Rich also begins a new series entitled "Adventures in Cultural Cognitive Dissonance". Pro-abortion choice advocacy may not only effect your ability to think morally, it may also challenge your ability to think consistently.

5 comments:

I did not hear you guys directly talk about what Gregory Koukl has written about below. Do you think that Koukl’s specific point below is a good way to explain this issue to people?

Gregory Koukl writes, “Imagine for just a minute commandos in the Second World War impersonating Nazi officers, dropped behind Nazi lines to infiltrate concentration camps. Their mission? Destroy the gas chambers. Now mingling incognito with the rest of the camp cadre, they have many opportunities to kill other soldiers, even officers. Even the Commandant. But do you kill the individual executioner or do you go after the gas chamber? In this case, it seems that killing the individual would be wrong even though he was truly murderous, because it would keep the commandos from fulfilling their larger mission. And their failure would mean more lives lost in the long run. The short term gain would be no victory because the machinery of destruction would still be in place. Do you see that?” http://www.str.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=5390

I have hesitated to answer this question because we purposefully did not discuss it on the podcast. We were divided on the answer to your question. I can say that Scott helped craft this argument when he worked with STR and he feels very confident in it. I have some reservations, but I did not want to discuss them because both Scott and Greg are putting forth something that they considered and carefully crafted and I cannot say the same about my reservations which were much more intuitive.

I am sure that I will mull this over, but Scott (and I think Rich, too) is confident that this is a good and effective argument.

Hi Serge, Jay and Scott:Yes, we are consistant when we, as a group of pro-lifers, condemn the murder of George Tiller. As I believe that it is a commonly held belief within the pro-life community that the taking of a human life without justification is a serious moral wrong. Further, if one says that all human life is precious when referring to our unborn neighbors, then it's logical to extend that to include bigger humans, like George Tiller. Our value as humans is not changed by our behavior. Just as it does not change when we become less productive. What he did for a living was indefensable, but this does not change the fact that he was a human being, worthy of the right to live. Great podcast, I wish I had a way to collect them. Best, Lori

I read through what Koukl had written more closely. I read more detailed information in regards to what he means by the machinery of the killing. Koukl writes, “What this illustration shows is that there is no necessary contradiction in the view that abortion is a holocaust, yet the killing of individual abortionists is properly condemned. In fact, it is precisely because we hold to the innocent humanity of the unborn that we insist on an approach to this solution that is directed at the machinery of the killing--the laws, the economics and the deep human need that makes the alternative appealing. That's our focus.” When I skimmed through what he had written, I did not read those details. The above details give me a better understanding of how Koukl might explain specific parts of the illustration.